


it's not air that you need

by intoxicatelou



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Archie needs a hug, Bisexual Archie Andrews, Drunk Dialing, Drunken Confessions, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Jarchie - Freeform, Jughead Jones is a good bro, Love Confessions, M/M, Panic Attacks, Protective Jughead Jones, Slow Burn, Truth or Dare, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and also slow dancing, and rihanna, ft. semi naked boys, set sometime early in the season, so much dialogue, the aftermath of grundy, there is a lava lamp, this is entirely self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 23:25:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11565546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intoxicatelou/pseuds/intoxicatelou
Summary: He walks fast, mostly underneath the knowledge that in another life, he’d already be there and they’d play bad video games that Archie would win at because Jughead would let him and that there’d be no drinking and bad phone conversations, but rather two boys who were more people than fragments.  Jughead hates her, but part of him hates himself more.or the one where Grundy leaves Archie unhinged and Jughead runs back to catch him.





	it's not air that you need

**Author's Note:**

> heyo pals, welcome to this mess of a fic. literally i wrote this when riverdale was still starting out and i'm just now getting around to post it bc like it's been burning up in my google drive. this is entirely self indulgent and the title is from the song DO YOU GO UP by KHAI which is a bop and i listened to it a lot while writing this. i really hate grundy and just wanted a fic where jughead takes care of archie through the shit storm he probably went through once she left town. anyway this isn't beta'd at all and has lots of dialogue but pls yell w me in the comments or on my tumblr (intoxicatelou) but yeah! thanks for reading bbs
> 
> fic is casually dedicted to F. for reading this when i was actually writing this and being my jug everyday. you're the best.

_ I won't take lightly _

_ Your heart in my hand _

_ No lies, no sin _

**_I know you can breathe; It's not air that you need_ **

_ \- DO YOU GO UP by KHAI _

Jughead Jones is not a saint, but neither is Archie Andrews, even if he’s the only one who looks like it.

Archie Andrews is varsity jacket wearing, teeth-grinning mood boy.  His hair is red like the inside of cherries and Veronica's Saturday lipstick - Jughead's nothing if not perceptive of details, he blames it on his obsession with journalism  (not Archie Andrews).  Archie on the other hand is hormone-blind, and most of the time oblivious and boxer-hard, over two girls and a fucked up music teacher; all good intentions obviously, so Jughead couldn't even be really pissed if he wanted to.  The thing is Jughead knows the virile Archibald Andrews, knows the Adonis body only hides the fragility underneath, a kind of fact not everyone can accept but one Jughead Jones spent years figuring out. They've always been like this, tripping over each other's jagged edges, Archie's pride and Jughead's everything, constantly ripping each other apart, the kind of damage that only their bad jokes and intimate jabs could fix.  Archie Andrews is fissured glass and Jughead Jones knows it best of all.

So when Ms. Grundy or Jennifer or the devil incarnate in Jughead's opinion, leaves for good, he should've seen the storm coming. Archie is good at some things, but coping with loss is not one of them. Jughead would know, he was there when the divorce happened, when the house was a person empty and hollow, so much that Archie and him would spend hours wrapped up in video games and junk food in the treehouse that doesn't exist anymore, but once was everything. 

"You're my best friend, Juggy" Archie had said, missing a front tooth and voice just beginning to crack.  They were young then and star gazing, Jughead reciting all the constellations he had memorized after two hours on google just because Archibald Andrews had asked that afternoon, a pillow-soft "thank you" pressed into the space where Archie's hair tickled Jughead's collarbone. Archie fell asleep on him that night, and Jughead still remember that crick in his arm took four days to go away, but it was worth it to hold his entire world a little longer.  Memorizing constellations was an example of the kind of thing he'd do again and again from then on and always, anything to get Archie to look at him like that night, like Jughead was the surest thing in time. Loyalty tasted first like moonlight and sweet cola, looked like the sun at midnight, soft red hair and bony knuckles. Jughead would never forget how Archie's palms had lined up his, fingers tangling like it was the natural order of events. 1+1=2, J+A= home.

It was a rookie mistake that Jughead hadn't expected the phone call at 1:35 am that Wednesday night but the summer had left its scars, both from Archie and his own shit, so he hoped fate could cut him some slack, at least on a fucking school night.  But then it’s not like fate’s in the business of being kind. 

The bench in the abandoned park he'd been sleeping on wasn't exactly comfortable, but he'd been steadily drifting into a familiar nightmare when his phone began playing it's alien ring tone that always made Archie laugh when they were fourteen. God, they were so young then.  He knows he shouldn’t pick up. But.

"Archie. "

" _ Jughead _ !!!"

"Archibald, you do know it's almost two in the morning and we have school tomorrow."

Jughead tries to add a yawn into his voice, make it seem like the wind isn’t just howling above his head, that sleeping is better than this, Archie’s voice past midnight.

"Juggy, where are you?

Jughead tenses on the bench at that question, fearful that Archie could hear his lies.  It wouldn’t be the first time, but he utilizes the same sardonic bravado to avoid finding out.

“That sounds like a stupid question.”

Archie giggles then and Jughead’s suddenly ten times more worried than he was a second ago.

“Jughead, Juggy, c’mon I miss  _ you _ .”

“Arch where are you?”

Jughead pinches his wrist as the old nickname slips out, but it’s not hard enough to miss the hitch in Archie’s breath when he says it.

“Love it when you call me that.  _ Arch _ . God haven’t heard that in a while, Juggy. Why don’t you call me that anymore?”  Archie’s tripping over his own words when he says it, a hushed mumble, deeper than Jughead could’ve anticipated and he feels like he’s running hot even though the cold front’s coming in tonight, rattling his bones in the flannel he’s wearing.

“Tell me you’re home right now.”

“I am. You should come over.”

“Isn’t your Dad there or something, Andrews?”

“Nah. Plus he won’t be in tonight and told me to not wait up.  Juggy, _ c’mon _ . The door’s unlocked. Come over. I miss you.” Archie gasps, the words getting away from him in a moment. “I need you, please”

_You don’t mean it, you never do._ Jughead’s about to hang up at that itself when he hears Archie hiccup and then the suspicious sound of a bottle hitting a kitchen counter. Oh. _Oh._

“Archie Andrews are you participating in underage drinking?”

“ _ Juggy  _ \- ” 

“You’re drunk aren’t you.”

“Look, It’s not like that. I just – I just started thinking about  _ her  _ and I couldn’t I can’t do that anymore. It’s so bad. It aches, I can’t control it. And Dad said it isn’t my fault, but Jughead, I  _ wanted  _ it.” A pause, and more sounds of Archie gulping that sets every hair on Jughead’s arms on edge. His knuckles are white as he holds the phone, the memory of Ms. Grundy raising bile at the back of his throat.  Archie doesn’t stop talking and Jughead wishes he would. “And she’s…she’s gone now. But I still,  _ want.  _ And I just wanted to forget for a while. The beer was just there and you understand right? She’s – I can’t stop thinking about  _ her  _  Juggy, it  _ hurts. _ And It’s all my fault, I should’ve said something, but she’s really gone isn’t she? And you are too, you probably hate me but I’m so alone now Juggy I’m so sorry I left you for her I shouldn’t have I miss you  _ so much more _ than I could ever miss her I know that now and Juggy come home  __ –“

“ _ Archie.” _ Jughead tries to keep the tremor out of his voice, knows he won’t ever forget this conversation, that he should’ve done something to stop it because she turned his golden boy into a cracked vase and Jughead can only try to stop the bleeding from how hard it’s cutting them both.

“You have to understand. You have to get it.  _ I’m sick with wanting _ ,  _ Juggy - ” _

“I’ll be over in ten minutes.” Jughead says to stop Archie’s rambling, to stop the truth from spilling in any harder than it has, and Archie stumbles over a ‘thank you’ before hanging up.

He walks fast, mostly underneath the knowledge that in another life, he’d already be there and they’d play bad video games that Archie would win at because Jughead would let him and that there’d be no drinking and bad phone conversations, but rather two boys who were more people than fragments.  Jughead hates her, but part of him hates himself more.

He reaches the Andrew’s household panting because Jughead had started running halfway, imagining alcohol poisoning and burying Archie Andrews because he did something stupid like fall up the damn stairs.  The door’s unlocked as promised and Jughead walks in after hiding his backpack in the bushes because he’ll have to own up to that one day but tonight’s not about him. It’s about Archie and the damage that Grundy left behind.

Jughead might not have been here in months but he still knows the house well enough in the dark and it takes him a minute but then he’s in the kitchen, moonlight pouring in from the window and one very drunk Archie Andrews sitting shirtless on the counter in nothing but his blue boxers, beer bottles all around him.

“Hi pal.” Jughead says and Archie’s eyes, brown and out of focus, are on him immediately. “Are you, Archie Andrews, football god and modern day Apollo  _ seriously _ getting drunk in the dark all alone because if so, I need to get the ice cream, because this is calls for some serious Break Up protocol.” Jughead waits for the laugh that never comes, but Archie’s on his feet then, staggering a little and Jughead’s reaching forward against his better judgment.

“You’re here.” Archie’s voice is half awe and cracking, pulling Jughead closer from the shadows without even trying. “You’re really here. You came for me.”

Jughead’s in front of Archie before he knows it, pulling the boy into a hug that won’t fix either of them but God knows, he’ll try.  Archie’s hiding his face into the crevice of Jughead’s neck, the tears spilling on their own and it feels like a personal monsoon. Jughead’s hands wrap themselves around Archie’s back, half-moon nails digging into pale skin he once knew better than his own, and he swears Archie keens at that, softly through the tears.

“How’d we get here Arch?” Jughead whispers. He wants his sarcasm to come in and shelter them both, but there’s no laughter here. There’s only an absence of what should’ve been.

“I don’t know I don’t know. I wish I hadn’t taken that ride home. I wish we could’ve gone on our road trip. I wish I could’ve been brave, Jug I’m so sorry – “ Archie sounds hysterical, inching closer and closer to madness that Jug’s seen in his own father and yeah no, he vows then that  Archie is never getting drunk again.  Not like this.

 

“Pal, look I wasn’t really asking. Sorry about that. Just breathe with me okay? In and out.” Jughead pries the beer bottle out of Archie’s palm, takes it and presses it against the hollow of his own chest as he breathes. Their fingers tangle and Jughead counts to ten and watches Archie learn to breathe again. Time stretches out, the present narrowing to nothing but how the new callouses on Archie’s fingers feel against Jughead’s knuckles, the point of touch its own lullaby.

 

“C’mon Arch. Let’s get you to bed. Can you go upstairs and wait for me?” Jughead’s voice is velvet soft, unusual and specially reserved for someone.  It snaps Archie out of his demons, makes him shiver with the contact.   _ Jellybean where is she? ,  _  Archie remembers muddily, but Jughead is already ushering him up the stairs, hands careful on his lower back, the kind of touch Archie finds himself leaning back into.

 

“I won’t be long promise, just have to clean up your mess pal.”  Archie nods and slowly stumbles into the living room, Jughead reaching to turn the lights on and grimaced. 

 

“Talk about high alcohol tolerance.” Jughead muttered as he began cleaning the beer bottles, some half full, other’s completely empty, and all disgusting.  The whole process sets his teeth on edge at how easy it is, and Jughead’s thinking bitterly of his father, the drunkard failure. He remembers thirteen and cleaning up empty beer bottles so Jellybean wouldn’t ask too many questions, and so that his mother would stay a day longer.  The appeal of alcohol had long evaded Jughead Jones, unlike some of his high school counterparts who couldn’t seem to get enough of this poison.

“Oh Archie, what am I going to do with you?” Jughead muttered to himself as he finished cleaning up the kitchen island finally so that when Fred Andrews did get home, he’d have one less thing to worry about.

Walking up the stairs, Jughead’s fingers trace the banister and he’s reminded of a younger gangly Archie daring him to slide down it with his eyes closed, and the proceeding bloody nose which had happened when he inevitably lost his balance and fell off.  They were just kids but the dynamic hasn’t changed. Jughead is blind loyal to Archie, even at the cost of his own sanity. It’s the closest thing to unconditional that Jug’s ever known. 

His eyes are fond with the memories as the clock ticks closer to three in the morning, and Jughead walks into Archie Andrew’s bedroom, hearing the familiar opening chords of an indie rock song, unsurprised but also amused.

 

“Tortured artist much? Also you could put a shirt on, y’know. ” The bite doesn’t have any real bitterness to it, and Archie shrugs and  smiles all tangerine from his position on the bed.  His limbs lie starfish in the dim lighting and his eyes looked scrubbed raw but softly glassy, focusing on Jughead immediately. Jughead absently notices the empty water bottle crushed on his bedside table, and is glad Archie isn’t a dumb drunk at least. The rest of the  room is only illuminated by the striking glow of a lava lamp near the foot of Archie’s bed that Jughead hadn’t noticed before and he notes that it must be a new addition. He looks at it quizzically before he reaches to turn the rest of the lights on.

“Don’t.” 

Jughead freezes feeling the callouses of Archie’s fingers on his wrist, the brief bit of contact so poignant his head could spin with it.  _ C’mon Jones keep it together. _  “The lava lamp’s enough light for me. Unless—”

 

“Yeah, I’m fine with it, too.” Jughead stammers out and yelps as Archie pulls the both of them down into the plush warmth of his bed.  They lie there for a moment, Archie’s fingers still winding themselves around his wrist and the background of the music taking over, songs that when Jughead listens closely sound like an interesting choice to play while you’re lying half-naked with your ex best friend.  This entire feels kind of ridiculous, Jughead thinks, but the cut lines of Archie’s chest are better than any park bench so he’s not complaining. The music plays, as Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys shifts into Hills by the Weekend, Jughead can’t help but hum in the quiet.

“So your sex playlist huh? Have to say, expected more Rihanna.”

The  nonchalance i n his jab baffles Archie for a moment, who hazily hooks Jughead with a look like melted cinnamon, a gentle laugh bursting on his tongue. Jughead can feel his eyes crystallize under Archie’s gaze and it all feels like a movie.

“If you wanted Rihanna, you just had to ask.” Jughead watches Archie’s bicep as he reaches to grab his phone from his bedside table, watches as Archie still doesn’t let go from the circling pattern of his thumb on Jughead’s wrist,  watches the revelation.

_ Kiss it, kiss it better, baby _

_ Been waiting on that sunshine boy, I think I need that back _

“Better?” When Jughead doesn’t answer immediately, Archie turns in a fluid motion to face Jughead, the concept of personal space out the window in a single straddling motion Jughead tries to counter by pushing himself up in a sitting position closer to the headboard because physics right but then oh.  _ oh.  _ He’s got a pile full of dazed boy in his lap before he can really help it, their necks craning towards each other maybe on accident, but mostly by fate and all Jughead can think about is how Archie’s got these  _ damn  _ pink lips this close up, kind of like the mix between bubblegum sweet and cherry sin and he’s fascinated.

“Let’s play a game.” Archie says taking a breath for the both of them, and the phantom tug of their lips pauses for a moment. Besides, somewhere among Rihanna and the oceanic blue of the Lava Lamp and the heat of Archie Andrews mostly bare thighs (seriously this boy could function as a space heater and those boxers aren’t making this a fair play because it’s like Archie just  _ knows  _ all of Jughead’s weak spots and really Andrews? really) …Jughead’s forgotten how to speak.

“Truth or Dare, okay? I’ll go first. Ask me.” Archie sits and for a languid moment, Jughead just watches him. He’s a little confused, a lot warm (the extra sweater he slipped on for the night out now a mild regret), and his observation skills slightly going haywire being this close to someone who he honestly didn’t think he’d have the chance with again.  The clock ticks and the cut of Archie’s jaw sounds as sharp as Rihanna almost crooning to him,  _ what are you willing to do? _

“Truth or Dare?” Jughead’s voice sounds foreign in his ears, the slight rasp drawing Archie’s attention too but before they both can acknowledge it  - “I’ll go with Truth.”

“Okay, How drunk are you?” He asks mostly because he has to know what level of Archie Andrews he’s dealing with and yes there are levels, what kind of  (ex) best friend would he be to not make note of it.

“Somewhere between a little and a lot. Like I can talk but It’s just. It’s all rambling and it’s all true and I can still  _ play  _ okay and I won’t lie to you if that’s what you’re wondering because I won’t because you’re so  _ good  _ to me Jughead, more than you should be, after everything I’ve done, and”

Jughead squeezes the inside of Archie’s knee on instinct, like they did when they were kids and Archie lets out a breath, sheepish, hiding behind the flop of his red hair. Jughead fights the instinct to smooth it back and away, to let his fingers trail lower to the dip of his clavicle, and he can feel the blue in his own eyes intensify just by the thought.

“Truth or Dare?” Archie asks, staring right back and Jughead’s dizzy and needs to get up, get out, so he spills “Dare” without thinking and then.

“I dare you to slow dance with me.”

Archie waits for the flinch, the laugh, the  _ that’s gay, even for you Andrews,  _ but Jughead surprises the both of them by asking “To Rihanna?”

“What?”

“Which song?”

“Oh.”

“So are you going to tell me? I mean, Rihanna is more sex than slow dancing though.”

“You’ve got ears Jughead, you’ll hear it.” 

“Are you trying to sass me Andrews? That wasn’t part of the dare.”

Archie rolls his eyes as he stumbles a little moving off of Jughead to stand right next to the lava lamp, the colors bouncing over his stretched frame, taut muscle and the daunting V of his hips, it looks more like an art installation of a solar system than a boy.   He touches a few buttons on his phone and Jughead hears the smooth tones pour through the speakers. He doesn’t know the song but he can hear the lyrics start before Archie’s pulling him to his feet.

_ I heard you might be _

_ Concerned you like me _

_ Your turn, just try me - _

Jughead fumbles with his hands for a moment till Archie presses Jughead’s shaking palms to the curve of his own hips, an intimate gesture but that was the game. Jughead looks up to find Archie’s hands hang slowly around his neck, locking their bodies in an embrace as the music continues to roll through the room. Jughead understands how this looks, Archie with his Adonis skin on display curling up around the dark-haired freak with a beanie, a kind of odd circumstance. He wishes he could care but he feels as if his world narrows down to this boy in front of him whenever he’s with Archie and as they begin to slowly sway to the music, Jughead can almost forget that this summer happened, that he was hurt, that he was broken by the very fingers which were now twined in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Is this okay, Arch?”

“Yeah, it’s okay. Really. Okay.”

“You could put a shirt on, still.”

“Do you want me to?”

Their foreheads collide as the song peaks to its chorus and Jughead aches. And aches. And aches some more.  Archie still smiles.

_ Do I make waves in your body, love? _

_ Do you get high, is it just too much? _

“Truth or Dare, Archie.”

“Truth.”

“Why this song?”

“It made me think of you. And us. And everything. It always calms me down, like you do. I was going to show it to you along with a few other songs on the road trip before. Before.”

“You made me a road trip playlist?  I thought I was in charge of that.”

“Well as much as I’d love to listen to My Chemical Romance on loop for six hours, some of us have more eclectic tastes –“

“Indie Trash isn’t an eclectic taste –“

“Truth or Dare, Jughead.”

Jughead squeezes Archie’s hip at that, almost as if to say _touche,_ pretending he didn’t notice the misstep it causes Archie to do.

“Truth.”

“Where’d you learn to slow dance? You haven’t stepped on my feet once.”

“Jellybean and I used to practice in the living room. I thought I’d need it to impress all those girls at those high school dances I’m such a huge fan of now.”

“They’re missing out. You look great in a suit.”

Jughead barks a laugh at that, and he thinks about Jason Blossom’s funeral. Thinks about the crescent moon scars in his palms when he noticed how Val had held Archie’s hand after Mrs. Blossom had decided to touch Archie’s hair and do the creepy deja-vu moment.  On an instinct Jughead pulls Archie closer, the gray of his own sweater brushing up against the beginnings of a soft patch of ginger hair that fades down and  _ god, he can’t do this right now.   _

“Truth or Dare.”

“Truth.”

“How’s Val, Archie?”

“Oh. Um. She helps me with my music a lot? Mostly anyway.  She’s such a talented songwriter Juggy, it’s incredible and she  _ gets  _ it you know? The whole dream and risk and love for it.”

“Yeah.”

Jughead doesn’t know why he sounds different, but the smile he’s sporting isn’t bullet proof. He wonders if Archie knows.

“We kissed once too. But that was just a kiss.”

“Just a kiss.”

“I mean you’re one to talk.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Truth or Dare, Juggie.”

“Truth.”

“Why’d you kiss Betty?”

“Because. I guess I could like her. Or should anyway.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I pick Dare, before you ask.”

“Take my shirt off.”

“What???”

“Arch, your room’s burning up and I’m too tired to make up a proper dare.”

“Okay – both layers or?”

“Why not, it’s just you.”

“Yeah, its. It’s just me.”

It’s Archie’s turn to watch Jughead now, to fit his hands underneath the midnight color of his sweater and shirt underneath, feel the shiver that runs through the other boy at the brush of his knuckles over pale skin. The clothes come off easily and Jughead’s hands immediately go to steady his beanie, god forbid it fall off.   Archie steps back to place Jug’s clothes on the bed and turns around to his destruction. Because. God.

Jughead is marble smooth dotted with moles which Archie thinks are his favorite stars.  His black skinny jeans are low cut and hang at his hips like Archie’s own personal damnation. His chest is bare and a promise Archie plans on keeping. He looks dark and bright and beautiful, awash in the moonlight and red-blue-green glow from the lava lamp, and it’s a better salvation than alcohol could ever dream on giving him tonight. Archie calls him  _ king  _ before he can help it, steps closer and bumps his chest against Jughead’s, an uncertain –  _ nervous, dizzy, longing –  _ hand finding its way to the small of Jughead’s back.

“We’re still slow dancing?” Jughead murmurs, a laugh in his eyes.

“Yeah.” Archie says stupid, dumb, and fond – full of a sunset love.

“Okay.”

They move in small motions and the song loops, Jughead realizing he doesn’t mind it, the ambient sound becoming a background to the steady feeling of Archie’s heartbeat his palm fits neatly over. 

“Truth or Dare, Juggie.”

“Truth.”

“Do you like Betty?”

Jughead stops at that, the moment no longer stretching out but being pulled sharply into focus, into the hazel marbles of Archie’s eyes, the magnetic sound of his heartbeat increasing, slowly, and then _thudthudthud_ , fast and abrupt, still waiting.  He can hear it in his palms, and he can feel it in Archie’s body, a thrum of jealousy even the coldest lie couldn’t hide, because this truth, this reckoning, Jughead realizes has been as inevitable as the phone call that brought him here tonight.

“Do I like Betty?” Jughead echoes, his fingers moving to wrap themselves around the hammer pulse of Archie’s bird bone wrist and the morse code language of his very existence is urging him to act. 

“Does it matter?” Jughead asks honestly, the  _ when i’ve always been yours, all along  _  kissed to the inside of Archie’s wrist, and he slides gentlerough lips against the bone then, turning  Archie into an open vein. His eyes peer up to challenge Archie from underneath a fringe of dark eyelashes, blue eyes liquefying into obsidian the longer they stare, and somewhere Archie knows a wolf is howling.  It’s carnal and it’s precious together, and Archie can’t breathe.

“No.” Archie concedes, whisper rough, and it’s all Jughead needs. His lips leave Archie’s wrist to crash full moon into his face, missing his mouth at first but then they’re fighting, this time with their tongues, and it’s like coming home. Their hips align like the constellations they spent their youth under, Jughead winding his fingers into the red of Archie’s hair, remembering thirteen and bad redhead jokes, remembers now and how he’s still wanting.

“ _ I am sick with wanting.” _ Jughead parrots back the very line that brought him here to begin with and then he’s colliding with the sugar plush of Archie’s mattress and his neck arching as Archie bites at the smooth of his jaw.  He tastes his lips, and frowns slightly because it’s beer and spit, but under the chaos, the unmistakable raspberry mint flavor of Archie.  

“Me too.” Archie rasps, and Jughead’s groaning into the space between their bodies, into soft sweat accumulating as their faces clash, as their bodies shift till their legs tangle and the rest of the night spins in their shadows. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading !! i might most another part in this verse, maybe their first time?? we'll see !! kudos and comments r always appreciated thanks pals !


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